The Boy with the Mustang
by DaybyDay
Summary: It’s April Fools’ Day. Day of truth, day of reckoning. The day of your beginning, the day it ended. PostRent One Shot. Mentions of MarkRoger slash.


**Disclaimer: I do not own any of Rent... and as always, feedback is appreciated. :0)**

**The Boy with the Mustang**

It's warm hands running down your lean, pale chest. It's lips and caressing and sweet touches and whispered "I love yous".

It's April Fools' Day. Day of truth, day of reckoning. The day of your beginning, the day it ended.

It's the day you try and forget, had hidden away from in years past. Had packed up your messenger bag and headed out into the sun for the afternoon, camera in tow and pain in your heart. It was the day no one noticed your absence and you were grateful for it, looking for sanctity- sanity in silence.

But today, this April Fools' Day, his hands are exploring, touching, teasing, and you love, no, really love it - but hate it too, because God, you can't be feeling this way, not today, not on April Fools' Day.

And suddenly you cry, which you haven't done in a long time, maybe not since Angel's death, and that time, that time you cried - it was only in your own room with the door closed behind you, hiding your painstakingly beautiful tears from your friends, your family, from Roger - who had too much on his plate to begin with and didn't need the salty water making it all soggy.

And as a kid, as a kid - April Fools' Day was full of childish, innocent pranks - whoopee cushions and a knock knock joke Dad used to come home from the office with. It was smiles and warning looks from Mom telling you that no, Mark, you better not steal all of Cindy's clothes and pretend like she'd given them all to goodwill just to see Cindy's grey-blue eyes get the to the size of quarters. It was mischief and laughter.

But that one day, that one April Fools' Day, there was no laughter, because there was a phone call from a hospital and your father's knock knock joke never got told and was replaced by a grim line tainting his aging face. And you stood, blue eyes wide like saucers, like Cindy's had when you had stole all her clothes and told her Mom had given them all away all those years ago - but that wasn't like Cindy's wide-eyes, because hers had fallen into soft laughing ones when she had realized her little brother- sweet nine year old Mark (you) - was just playing a prank. Your eyes were shock and fear and Oh My God, your twin sister, Lauren, was in the hospital.

And you remember telling her not to go out with that older boy, he was bad news and liked to drink. And you remember telling her to be careful when you told she told you that you, Mark, were being too overprotective and oh, he's just a boy and he likes her for Gods' sake and couldn't you be happy for her for once? But you thought seventeen was too young to be so in love with someone she didn't really know but you let her go anyway, helped her climb out the window, even, to meet him in his fancy Mustang with neon lights.

But the clock stroke midnight and then it was 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, and the phone rang. And you stood there in your plaid pajama bottoms and your wide blue eyes like saucers with Cindy's heavy breathing in your ear as Dad tells you that Lauren's in the hospital - the driver - the boy with the neon lights and the Mustang - had been driving drunk and swerved off the road.

And April Fools' Day that year was filled with tears and guilt and waiting rooms, and then the sound of a machine flat lining and the beginning of the realization that there's a business to dying. It was funeral arrangements and a hole in your heart and you never really believed that twin's intuition, twin soul-connecting shit but you did after that, because with Lauren, a part of you died.

But you never told anyone, not Benny or Collins or even Roger or Maureen or even Mimi… not a soul, no one but your family knew and Lauren? Her name was and is never mentioned anymore because you knew and know Mom sort of still blames you for helping her to sneak out the window that night.

So you begin crying because you shouldn't feel so fucking loved right now, not when your twin sister is six feet under and the hole in your heart is throbbing with that twin thing, and the guilt is drowning you. You don't deserve his soft words and the consoling for the breakdown you know he doesn't understand.

You push away from him and begin mumbling incoherently, and oh shit, you hear Lauren's name slip from your mouth and suddenly you're telling him the whole story and he's shocked - he has the same wide eye blank stare Cindy had and you had but his is green and looks like emeralds.

Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, you think, your twin sister that no one knew about, that you never thought about. The girl who began your friendship, parallel with death, the girl who had started the hole in your heart that had been later widened by Angel, and Mimi and soon enough Collins will add to it- he's been having a hard time breathing these days. And you know that that this hole will be totally ripped open by the loss of Roger, your Roger, and you know that when that happens, (hopefully not soon, oh please, not soon) you'll tumble backwards into your own heart, the gap sucking you in like a black hole.

But for now he's cradling you to his chest and mumbling soothing words that you're not really hearing but are thankful for. You're not calming down but you're winding down, because it's 11:30PM and in a half hour April Fools' Day will be over and a new day will begin.

A new day will begin and you won't think about April Fools' Day and Lauren and the boy with the Mustang- not until next year.


End file.
